Uruguay - Argentina - page 1128

» Dress for the occasion; only tourists and athletes wear shorts in Buenos Aires.
Don'ts
» Don't refer to the Islas Malvinas as the Falkland Islands, and don't talk to
strangers about the Dirty War.
» Don't suggest that Brazil is better than Argentina at fútbol, or that Pelé is better
than Maradona. And don't refer to fútbolas soccer.
» Don't show up at bars before midnight, or nightclubs before 3am, or dinner
parties right on time (be fashionably late).
» Don't refer to people from the United States as Americans or americanos; use
the term estadounidenses(or even norteamericanos) instead. Some Latin Amer-
icans consider themselves 'American' (literally from America, whether it be North,
Central or South).
Lifestyle
Although Buenos Aires holds more than one-third of the country's population, it's sur-
prisingly unlike the rest of Argentina or, for that matter, much of Latin America. As is
the case throughout the country, one's lifestyle in the capital depends mostly on money.
A modern apartment rented by a young advertising creative in Buenos Aires' Las Cañitas
neighborhood differs greatly from a family home in one of the city's impoverished villas
(shantytowns), where electricity and clean water are luxuries.
Geography and ethnicity also play important roles. Both of these Buenos Aires homes
have little in common with that of an indigenous family living in an adobe house in a
desolate valley of the Andean Northwest, where life is eked out through subsistence agri-
culture and earth goddess Pachamama outshines Evita as a cultural icon. In regions such
as the Pampas, Mendoza province and Patagonia, a provincial friendliness surrounds a
robust outdoor lifestyle.
Argentina has a reasonably-sized middle class, though it's been shrinking significantly
in recent years, and poverty has grown. On the other side of the spectrum, wealthy city
dwellers have moved into countries (gated communities) in surprising numbers.
One thing that most Argentines have in common is their devotion to family. The
Buenos Aires advertising exec joins family for weekend dinners, and the cafe owner in
San Juan meets friends out at the family estancia (ranch) for a Sunday asado (barbecue).
Children commonly live with their parents until they're married, especially within poorer
families.